Abiotic factors are the parts of the environment that affect an organism, and that would be present whether living things were there or not. Abiotic factors come from the Earth and its position in space; some examples would be hours of daylight, what minerals are present to build soil from, how much rainfall an area gets, temperature, or how steep a slope is.

Biotic factors are those environmental factors that affect an organism and that are created by living things. Biotic factors can include things like what plants are available in an area for grazers to eat, microbial activity in the soil, shade created by plant growth, and human influences such as pollution.